04.15.10

Summary: Putting a ‘Microsoft tax’ on proprietary GNU/Linux is still a priority which Novell perceives as sufficiently worth pursuing, even if it means daemonising Red Hat for sympathy

A FEW MONTHS back we saw Novell masquerading as Red Hat, only to receive/invoke letters of complaint in Spain [1, 2, 3] and then whine about it. Shades of TurboHercules [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11].

Novell’s PR people are now complaining about presentation/preservation of facts, which is rather hilarious because Novell is a chronic, pathological liar*, as it has proven repeatedly over the past few years (Novell rivals SCO and Microsoft for the “liar” status). The post says:

Since November 2008, Novell has offered the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Expanded Support Program to customers who want to migrate to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from an existing Linux distribution, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

[...]

Novell is deeply committed to the open source community, leading major projects including openSUSE and the Mono project, and providing major contributions to other open source initiatives. We are consistently one of the top corporate contributors to the Linux kernel.

Mono project? That’s more of a curse, not a contribution. The same goes for Moonlight. These projects are for Microsoft, not for GNU/Linux. Novell is selling out to Microsoft, promoting Microsoft APIs, and even puts Microsoft code inside the kernel (after it’s found to be a GPL violation [1, 2, 3]).

“We have shown based on statistics that Novell’s Linux contributions over the years dropped very sharply.”Novell is decreasingly contributing to Linux, to the point where Novell does not contribute to the kernel all that much anymore. We have shown based on statistics that Novell’s Linux contributions over the years dropped very sharply. The same cannot be said about Mono and related projects, which merely benefit the paymaster from Redmond.

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What Else is New

Principled, opinionated, self-governing individuals aren't any good for corporations looking to not only use their projects but to totally control those projects (copyleft licences such as GPL already make that hard enough for them, so it takes more time for legal 'hacks' such as software patents, "clown computing" and GitHub)

Certain groups that claim to represent the values of "Open Source" are in fact promoting the interests of Microsoft, GitHub etc. (i.e. monopoly or "open" as in a bunch of monopolies like Facebook and Microsoft sharing code snippets/resources over GitHub)

Torvalds and others who are middle-aged (or older) males are often torpedoed using weakly-backed allegations (or insinuations/innuendo) of sexism; that does not seem to matter and won't matter when they treat men the same (or worse)

Linus Torvalds was not fully canceled; nor was Richard Stallman, who's still heading the GNU Project (under conditions specified by those looking to oust him; people who code for Microsoft GitHub and many IBM employees)

General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Board of Red Hat, explains (keynote in 2011 Red Hat Summit/JBoss World) that he was introduced to the system as part of a military campaign; it basically helped war, not antiwar

Techrights examines Red Hat’s (IBM’s) hypocritical claims about the Free Software Foundation, founded by Richard Stallman back when IBM was the “big scary monopolist”; IBM employees were prominent among those pushing to oust Stallman from the GNU Project, which he founded, as well

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One might not expect this from a so-called 'charity'; the Gates Foundation's critics are often met with unprecedented aggression, threats and retribution, which make one wonder if it's really a charity or a greedy cult of personalities (Bill and Melinda)

The assault on the media by Bill Gates is a subject not often explored by the media (maybe because a lot of it is already bribed by him); but we're beginning to gather new and important evidence that explains how critics are muzzled (even fired) and critical pieces spiked, never to see the light of day anywhere

Microsoft buying GitHub does not demonstrate that Microsoft loves Open Source (GitHub is not Open Source and may never be) but that it loves monopoly and coercion (what GitHub is all about and why it must be rejected)

The European Patent Office (EPO) keeps granting fake patents that cause a lot of real harm (examiners are pressured to play along and participate in this unlawful agenda); nobody is happy except those who profit from needless, frivolous lawsuits

After contributing to the cancellation of Richard Stallman (RMS) based on some falsehoods perpetuated in the media we're seeing the sort of thing one might expect from IBM (more so now that it totally controls Fedora and RHEL)